Ashley Mary is an emerging artist from the Southwestern United States. She will be visiting Art Farm Iowa to paint a mural in the mural garden.

ABOUT ASHLEY

To share my art practice is to share myself and I’ve often said I’m an open book. My creative practice is messy, textured, colorful, and honest. I create more abstractly as an act of discovery, pieces revealing themselves over time—a commitment to staying in relationship with the fragment and trusting that pieces will eventually find their whole.

In the studio, I prioritize play over rigidity, experimenting with different mediums and keeping things in motion, I dance in this space. I’m more grounded when I’m making things with my hands. Heavily influenced by the raw, instinctive quality of naive art, my work is deliberately pared back yet deeply layered. My visual language is colorful and stuffed with familiar and organic form. I delight in the spontaneous, the unrefined, and the wildness.

I believe art, whether made or consumed, is an act towards wellness and creates a sense of belonging.

I believe in curiosity; I believe in the experiment; I believe in connection to self and others through form and color. Creating things tends to my spirit and in turn, I hope my artwork gives breathe to others tending theirs. My intention is lightness, connectedness, whimsy, and breathe of humanness in an increasingly digital world.